


Prisoner or Guest

by windsofsilesse



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29407335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsofsilesse/pseuds/windsofsilesse
Summary: Arthur is pursued by men for the "crimes" of his parents, and eventually they catch up to him.
Relationships: Asaa | Arthur & Azelle, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 11





	Prisoner or Guest

**Author's Note:**

> Used to be titled "Purging Fire." As of 2/17/2021, it's now named "Prisoner or Guest" because I feel like it fits better.

Arthur is eight years old when he hears a loud banging on his door. It rattles the door in its frame, threatens to blow it down. 

Tinni is five. Her eyes are wide and filled with tears at the sudden sound. Arthur can’t deny that he’s scared as well; no neighbor ever came knocking at their door like this, unless something was urgent. (Or, unless they weren’t their neighbors.) Still, Arthur hugs Tinni against his chest. “It’s okay, Tinni. Mother and Father’ve got it.” She nods and wipes her tears on his loose t-shirt.

A few minutes later, they watch from the bedroom as their parents rush to the door and peer out of the window. Mother pulls away from the curtain with a pale look on her face, her eyes wide and her mouth moving quickly, the sound of her voice not reaching their ears. After checking outside as well, Father runs towards them with that same look on his face.

“Father, what’s the matter?” Arthur asks, his voice shaking. He brushes past the child, and opens the window leading out of the bedroom. Father hefts Tinni outside into the cold morning of the Silessian village, and helps Arthur out. Fear floods his chest when he watches Father linger inside, before he jumps out of the window with them.

“I can tell you later. We need to leave.” He tries his best to be gentle, but anxiety creeps into his voice. He grabs Arthur and Tinni’s hands, and Arthur thinks he can feel them shaking.

“What about Mother?”

“Mother…” Father sucks in a breath. His eyes shine with tears in the early morning light. “Mother will be okay. We’ll see her again, alright?”

They walk for a while. Every ten steps, Father tosses a glance behind his back and quickens their pace. They walk past the boundaries of the village, into the snowy backcountry roads of Silesse. Arthur is slightly more relaxed once they hit the quiet roads, because they don’t need to trudge through the snow anymore. The villages nearby keep everything clean, to their luck. The only thing they had to worry about was the snow resting heavily on the branches of the trees lining their path, and how it seemed as if it may fall at any moment.

“Where are we going?” He asks after a while. He’d managed to be patient up until this point.

“We’re going to Castle Silesse,” Father says. Despite them being alone, Father’s voice is quiet and low, as if there were people watching in on them from the trees. “There are people there that can help us.”

“But… why?” Tinni asks, and here she is the loudest she’d been for the whole walk. According to Mother and her jokes, she was a far cry from Arthur when he was the same age; she is quiet, patient, gentle.

Father sighs; his breath spreads out through the air in a cloud. “There are… very bad men coming for us, so we need to be protected.”

“What about Mother?” He asks for the second time, new indignation in his chest. “Why did you leave her alone if we’re in danger?” He stops, planting his feet on the ground still muddy with melted snow and ice.

He pauses as well, kneeling in front of him and taking Arthur’s cold hands into his own. “Mother will be fine. They’re not going to hurt her, okay?” There’s something in his eyes that tells Arthur otherwise, that tells him of terrible fear and anxiety but Arthur is too young to fully comprehend that look in his eyes.

“Do you promise?” He calms slightly.

“I do. I promise.” And Father is a great man who never broke his promises, so Arthur isn’t very worried.

They continue through the muddy roads until night begins to fall. According to his parents, the days in Silesse were short, with nightfall being so early; having lived there all his life, Arthur didn’t really see the issue. On the contrary, Father would tell them of days in countries far away where the sun would hang over them in the sky for most of the day and it would be hot, far hotter than Silessian summers.

They enter an inn, and Arthur’s shivering ceases. It’s bright and warm and the staff are welcoming, but he still feels nervousness in his stomach and he doesn’t know why. Father drops a few coins onto the desk and ushers them upstairs.

Arthur and Tinni crawl into bed while Father waits at the door. The beds are not as comfortable as the beds at home, but they fall asleep anyways. The faster they get to Castle Silesse and sort everything out, the faster they get back home with Mother, Arthur reasons.

Morning comes, and Father shakes them awake like usual. Yet, the smile on his face is strained and exhaustion and fear haunt his expression; they are too young to comprehend anything beyond the smile, though, so they grin back and slip on their shoes.

The rest of the inn is silent, asleep. The sun has not yet risen outside, but the sky is steadily becoming lighter as they continue down that long, muddy road.

Yet, Arthur hears footsteps in the road that are not theirs. Father seems to hear it as well, for he ushers them into the trees on the side of the road and tells them to be quiet.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?” Arthur knows. Deep in his heart, he knows something is about to happen. Not even the dim light of early morning can hide the grim acceptance on his Father’s face from him.

“I’m going to make sure everything’s alright, okay?” His voice is shaking ever so slightly. He presses a kiss on each of their foreheads. “So remember… stay quiet. And if they start looking for you, you run.” Arthur nods reluctantly, and shifts his arm to place it around Tinni’s back. Their chests, pressed against the snow, are cold. Tinni whispers something to him about being hungry. Still, they stay put because Father told them that they would be safest there, and Father had never betrayed their trust.

“Azel of Velthomer.” The voice of a man calls out. Tinni lets out a quiet, involuntary whimper. She buries her head in her hands, while Arthur tilts his upwards to look out above the branches and bushes that blocked their view. Even if Arthur stood, at this distance, he probably couldn’t see into the road at all with the darkness of the early morning. “Come peacefully, please.” Despite his words, the man’s tone is sharp, bitter; they fill Arthur with indignation.

Suddenly, he sees a light through the leaves. Orange and red shine in the early morning; it’s of Father’s fire, the magic Arthur had always been so fascinated with but had yet to learn.

“Is that your answer?” His voice is dangerously low, and Arthur doesn’t quite understand why it is scary but it fills him with fear nonetheless.

A pause comes.

“Go! Find the children. They have to be around here somewhere.”

When the sound of footsteps approaches, he springs to his feet and starts to run, pulling Tinni along with him. He ignores the flashes of light behind him and the thunder rumbling overhead, the way the hairs on the back of his neck raise with the electricity in the air and he runs. It feels as if the electric current only propels him and Tinni further among the chaos.

However, they can’t run forever. They stumble sometimes, and the men chasing them come closer. He can hear the crackling of branches beneath their feet and their shouting. He continues, though. Tinni and him were never so athletic and never so brave, but they continue through the trees because that’s what Father wanted of them. 

Arthur feels gloved hands around his shoulders, and suddenly he’s raised into the air and being carried back in the other direction.

“Tinni!” He shrieks. He thrashes against the man. Now he’s too far to see what happens to her; he can’t see if she breaks through the woods into the rest of the country, or if she’s being picked up and carried off just as he is. “Tinni!”

His screaming almost drowns out the words of the man holding him. “What do we do with this one?” Arthur can’t quite see who he’s talking to, and it doesn’t matter. He’s still in trouble.

“Either carriage. Doesn’t matter to me.” And the man he’s talking to seems calm, despite everything, and Arthur can’t imagine how that can be.

Suddenly, Arthur is broken away from the chaos of the morning and tossed in the cold back of the carriage. The door slams shut and he’s in silence, save for his sniffling.

“Arthur?” A familiar voice calls out through the darkness, but it sounds more worn and exhausted than ever before.

“Father!” He searches blindly in the darkness until he finds Father’s coat; he grips onto it and does not let go, not until he feels something warm and wet under his fingers and hears Father wheeze. “What happened, Father?”

“I got a little bit hurt. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The man hadn’t really hurt him. He is just shaken from the ordeal, and who wouldn’t be? He opens his mouth to ask another question, but the carriage lurches beneath them and he can feel the rumbling and creaking of the wheels. “Where are we going?”

“I… don’t know.” And at this, Arthur was surprised, because Father always seemed to have a solution for everything. “I have some guesses.”

“What are they?” Arthur leans forward. Light begins to leak through the carriage; slits with bars over them, things that could barely be called windows, allow them to gaze out. They were continuing towards Castle Silesse, but something told Arthur that that wasn’t their destination.

“Hmm… perhaps Friege, or Alster.” Arthur gives him a blank stare of confusion. “Grannvale or the Manster District,” he elaborates. “Or... ” He seems to realize something, for he hesitates, his mouth open like a fish. He shakes it away and replaces it with a tired smile.

“What about your cut?” With the new light, Arthur can pinpoint the source of the blood. Whatever had hit him had just missed his ribcage. He can only tell where it is because the coat around the area is charred away and burnt to reveal a gushing wound.

“Please don’t worry Arthur. It’s not so bad.” He rips a long strip of cloth from the edge of his undershirt and winds it around the wound. He hisses slightly upon tying the knot with shaking fingers, but relaxes soon afterwards.

Soon, Father falls asleep. The worn look on his face is replaced by one of relative peace. Arthur can only stare; the anxiety and anticipation wearing away at him keeps him from sleeping peacefully. He rests his head against the bars and looks outside. As expected, they pass Castle Silesse and go down roads that Arthur has no idea where they lead.

Father wakes up, after gods know how long. “Come away from the window, Arthur.”

Arthur nods and leans against his side, and soon he finds himself falling asleep as well, despite the chaos and the fear and the loud creaking of the carriage beneath him.

He drifts in and out of sleep for a while. It’s a different time of day every time he wakes up and there is no breakfast or dinner left for them, so Arthur can’t quite tell how long he stays in the carriage.

Yet, inevitably, there comes an end to their ride.

It comes when Arthur wakes up, and bright warm light is shining through the carriage window. “Hi, Father,” he says sleepily.

“Arthur…” He is unable to hide his fear like before. He is visibly shaking and holding Arthur tightly against his chest despite the injury on his side.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur stares at his face, and Father cannot meet his eyes. Frozen, he is staring straight ahead at the carriage door; in that moment, he is more like a stone statue, locked in place, than a man.

“We’re here.”

“Where’s here?” 

“Belhalla.” And Arthur wants to ask him where that is again, but the carriage stops and it shakes them slightly. Now, he is clinging to Father. Try as he might, he can’t hear anything from outside of the carriage.

They wait in painful silence; to Arthur, it is longer and more stressful than the ride to Belhalla itself.

Eventually, they hear low conversation just in front of the door. Arthur squeezes Father’s hand--or maybe it is Father gripping his hand first, he can’t tell--and awaits their fate.

A warm wind, uncharacteristic of Silesse, flows into the carriage. Arthur dares to gaze up.

A man looms, face obscured by shadow, blocking the light.

Father’s voice is weak and thin.

“Brother?”

**Author's Note:**

> I might return to this idea in the future and expand upon it, but I'm not completely sure if I'll actually end up doing that. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.


End file.
